Melbourne businesswoman and philanthropist Susan Alberti is not Italian, but she delights in being mistaken for a native speaker. ‘I feel good when I speak in Italian and they respond, and they think I’m Italian. That’s how you know you’re doing it right’, she says.

A lot has been written about post-war immigrants and their quest to build a new life in an unfamiliar and remote land as Australia still was in the middle of the last century. Little account has been given of their children’s experiences as they grew up torn between two cultures, wrestling with society’s push to mainstream or marginalize them.

There are many stories of Italian migrants who came to Australia with nothing more than a suitcase and were able to achieve great success in their business undertakings: stories of hard work, endurance, determination and, in some cases, extraordinary fortitude in the face of dire circumstances.